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Title: Women and the Alphabet
Author: Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Release Date: September 15, 2004 [eBook #13474]
Language: English
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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Women and the Alphabet, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson

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WOMEN

AND THE ALPHABET

A Series of Essays

BY

THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON

1881

PREFATORY NOTE

The first essay in this volume, "Ought Women to learn the Alphabet?" appearedoriginally in the "Atlantic Monthly" of February, 1859, and has since been reprinted invarious forms, bearing its share, I trust, in the great development of more liberalviews in respect to the training and duties of women which has made itself manifestwithin forty years. There was, for instance, a report that it was the perusal of thisessay which led the late Miss Sophia Smith to the founding of the women's collegebearing her name at Northampton, Massachusetts.

The remaining papers in the volume formed originally a part of a book entitled"Common Sense About Women" which was made up largely of papers from the"Woman's Journal." This book was first published in 1881 and was reprinted insomewhat abridged form some years later in London (Sonnenschein). It must haveattained a considerable circulation there, as the fourth (stereotyped) edition appearedin 1897. From this London reprint a German translation was made by Fr\u00e4uleinEugenie Jacobi, under the title "Die Frauenfrage und der gesunde Menschenverstand"(Schupp: Neuwied and Leipzig, 1895).

T.W.H.

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

WOMEN AND THE ALPHABET

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CONTENTS

I. OUGHT WOMEN TO LEARN THE ALPHABET?
II. PHYSIOLOGY
Too Much Natural History
Darwin, Huxley, and Buckle
The Spirit of Small Tyranny
The Noble Sex
The Truth about our Grandmothers
The Physique of American Women
The Limitations of Sex
III. TEMPERAMENT
The Invisible Lady
Sacred Obscurity
Virtues in Common
Individual Differences
Angelic Superiority
Vicarious Honors
The Gospel of Humiliation
Celery and Cherubs
The Need of Cavalry
The Reason Firm, the Temperate Will
Allures to Brighter Worlds, and leads the Way
IV. THE HOME
Wanted--Homes

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Women and the Alphabet, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson